Segregate waste at source or face Delhi corporation fines of up to Rs 1L

News Source : The Times of India, Oct 19, 2018, 03:28 IST

NEW DELHI: The three municipal corporations of Delhi have issued a public notice saying waste must be segregated at source and failure to segregate, treat and dispose of waste scientifically would allow the civic bodies to fine resident welfare associations, market associations, bulk waste generators and housing societies anything between Rs 10,000 and Rs 1 lakh.

Questions, however, have been raised about whether Delhi has the infrastructure, awareness and willingness to follow the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, notified by the Central government.

Senior officials claimed the rules would be implemented in a planned manner and within six months would be executed across the capital. Fines will be imposed only after all stakeholders are on board and awareness programmes have been organised.

The rules say people have to segregate dry, wet and recyclable waste, and failure would attract large fines. Senior officials claimed the civic bodies have to adopt the rules laid down by the government. “We will not impose fines directly. We will start with awareness campaigns and gradually implement the rules. It will take six months to adopt this system across the capital. We will encourage the public and institutions to participate and coordinate with us and corporations will provide assistance to process waste or segregate it,” said a senior South Corporation official.

South Corporation has so far deployed 78 fixed compactors across their three zones and 25 more will be deployed within a couple of months in Najafgarh zone to do away with the concept of dhalaos. However, the East and North corporations are still lagging behind in deployment of fixed compactors.

The East and North Corporations are going through major financial crises but senior officials pointed out that they would use money from the Swachh Bharat Mission fund. As per Swachh Bharat fund criteria, a civic body needs to pay 20% of the total cost and the remaining 80% is to be borne by the Central government. However, given the financial crunch in the East and North corporations, the Central government has agreed to pay 100% in their cases.

“We had received Rs 100 crore under the Swachh Bharat Mission and this will be used for carrying out work related to waste segregation. We are in the process of floating a tender for procurement of fixed compactors which will help in segregating the waste. Also, we will run door-to-door campaigns to make people aware of the need for segregation,” a senior East corporation official said.

Ragpickers will be integrated into the process. “Once people start segregating waste at source it will become easier for us to process it. Ragpickers will be integrated to collect all the recyclable items from dry waste, wet waste will be composted and the remaining waste will be sent to waste-to-energy plants. Only the waste residue will reach the landfill site. This will give a major boost to reducing the load of landfill sites,” a senior North corporation official said.

There are three waste-to-energy plants in Delhi, at Okhla, Ghazipur and Narela-Bawana, and two more are proposed — one at Bhalswa and another at Tekhand. The South corporation has also proposed to set up 10 decentralised composting units to treat bio-degradable waste.